This Must Be the Place...

My nearest and Dearest,

 

Sounds like this are changing everywhere. This week I received a new companion, but mostly a new friend. Irma De Almeida. I know it is a little early (1 week) but my new companion and I are getting along famously. What a tender mercy of the Lord. Irma A is a native to Portugal she is from the North. Let me give you 5 facts that might sum up how well we get along... 1.She loves to cook 2. She likes good music (what?!?!?!) 3. She likes fashion 4.She speaks Portuguese and teaches it to me 5. I speak English and I teach it to her...ok well she is already pretty good at English but I help with pronunciation and little things 6. We both entered the mission on the same day March 24th and will end the same day (since she is native she went to the madrid MTC and has been in the field longer.)

 

I have a real feeling that we are soul friends, destined to find each other at this moment and help our fellow brother´s and sister remember the Plan our Heavenly Father has for us. Really this transfer is going to be so different. We eat well, (delicious Portuguese cuisine) and we are always learning together, asking each other questions about the language, praying together, contacting people in the street. It is incredible. It is like within a week my training wheels were ripped off and all of a sudden and can find my way around this town and use the bus system and the map like a pro, I can speak Portuguese more than I thought. I am learning how to teach in a completely different way than before. We sleep with the blinds open so the sun shines on our faces in the morning. We laugh and we work. Irma A has lots of family nearby in our stake, so that's weird for her. She knows all of the Young single adults in our ward because Portugal is like 1/4 the size of Utah. So the dynamic is soo different.

 

And get this, I have been teaching some of the lessons... start to almost finish.... WHAT!?!?!?! I don´t even speak this language. But I had heard Irma B teach so must that I understood what I needed to say and now I´m starting to teach!!!! It is really wonderful to teach the Gospel truths with people and see their eyes well up and get a bit misty, not because of anything I say, but because the spirit is whispering something deep in their heart ``this is true...`` I know that is why they get a bit misty, because that is why I get a bit misty when I recount Joseph Smith´s first vision, I think about how he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and they told Him that he would have to restore the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth, and what that meant. IT CHANGED EVERYTHING! YOU KNOW?!?! It changed everything, because of that first vision and the events after, the Truth would be restored and God´s children would once again be able to find the way to return home, mankind was reminded by a loving Heavenly Father and the Savior of the world, that they are alive and they love us and that they are rooting for us and want everyone to remember how to make it back. So ya, I get misty ok...

 

My new companionship is still requiring everything I have to be better and better each day, having a best friend of a companion does not make this an easy work. People slam the door in our face, people don´t even open the door to slam it in our face, people think we are peculiar, we are rejected, but Irma A says to me in her Portuguese accented English ´´You know, Jesus Christ was rejected, it was not easy for Him, and it will not be easy for us...`` And it is true. When we knock a door we introduce ourselves as Dicìpulas de Jesus Cristo. Not so often using missionaries, but disciples of Jesus Christ. We are, we are really His representatives, calling all people everywhere to come to Him and have real, good, undeniable, jump up and down on the roof tops kind of joy. It is not a calling of pride to be a missionary and to know all this stuff and tell people that we are right and they are wrong...it is the opposite. We get to humbly and meekly get down on our knees day in and day out and beg for help from Heavenly Father to find those who we can help, those who are ready to hear the message of the restored Gospel. We get to walk the streets and love every person we pass, we find those who are weak and show them their value as a divine child of God. We serve, we are sweaty and gross and some of us are not even speaking our own language, we are vulnerable, we are sincere, we talk with everyone we can. We pray with people no matter the location. We are so weak, but we rely on the Lord, this is His work, not ours. I imagine sometimes Jesus Christ walking through the multitudes and how he walked with kindness in His eyes, somehow uplifting those he passed with His Presence and His service. It was because he loved them, and they could feel it. Love them and they will feel it.

 

I fell on the escalator in the train station yesterday, and my legs got busted up, it was fun.

 

I had lots of different pastries this week, they are so good. This country knows how to whip up a mean pastry.

 

I would just go ahead and send any mail to the mission office, because I have not had anything in my box here and I´m gonna blame it on the mail system and not the lack of letters being written hahaha.

 

Oh my time is up... wow 

 

I love you all like you wouldn´t believe.

 

Irma McCrery